Poverty Sucks

We just returned from a great couple (or 4) days in Atlanta, Ga. We got to spend one day with my brother and his family before heading off to a conference. We were so blessed to have them keep ALL the kids for us so that we could go to this conference. Catalyst is a conference for church leaders. So the entire staff of our church went. It is 2 days of speakers and music. (not music speakers, but speakers who talk). Speakers ranged from Rick Warren- Craig Groeschel- Andy Stanley- John Maxwell. As you can imagine, it was a powerful 2 days. There was so much to take away from this conference that I would never do it justice by trying to sum it up in 1 blog. So I am sure that as the spirit moves me, I will blog on and on about it all. Today what has been impressed on my heart is "the world". We heard quite a bit about looking outside the 4 walls of our church and reaching the world. LoveGod, LoveAll. We brought home TONS of "stuff" from this conference. My favorite being a t-shirt that says POVERTYSUCKS. Offensive? Maybe. But I guess that is the point.
I was really moved by the thought of what it TRUELY means in James 1:27 Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.
Half the world, nearly 3 billion people live on less than $2 a day. Every 14 seconds a child is orphaned by AIDS. It is estimated that 28 million people world wide have died from AIDS. Of the 42 million men, women and children still living with HIV/AIDS, 70% are in sub-Saharan Africa.
So... worse than that is the FACT that less than 3% of evangelicals Christians said that they would be willing to help. Can these be the same people who profess to follow God, who according to Psalms 68:5 is "a father to the fatherless, a defender of the widows"? Everyday almost 16,000 children die from hunger related causes. That is one child EVERY 5 seconds.
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? Yes, poverty does suck!! But it isn't enough to just wear my offensive t-shirt. What am I willing to do to change the world? What is my church willing to do? One speaker that we heard this week was a man by the name of Francis Chan (affectionately known in our group as Jackie Chan, because we could never remember his name)he is in a church in California. He talks about how his church has just voted to give 50% of their budget to ministries outside the church. In order to love their neighbors as themselves, they are going to give as much outside the church as they spend on themselves. They are even talking about meeting in an outdoor amphitheater rather than a church building in order to save millions of dollars, that would be better spent on others. Again I ask.... What am I willing to do? What are you willing to do? What are our churches willing to do? To change these statistics.